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Xiaomi: “We Are Growing Too Quickly”

Smartphone maker Xiaomi took the leading position in terms of market share in China back in August this year. The company is only four years old and has experienced insane growth in the recent past. Last week CEO Lei Jun said that the company could become the largest smartphone company in five to ten years.

But that is easier said than done. Xiaomi is now slowing down the expansion outside of China. In an interview with Bloomberg, Hugo Barra, Vice President Global Operations, said that they will be focusing on five instead of ten new markets. India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines will be the focus while they will delay launching their devices in Brazil, Turkey, Mexico, Russia and Thailand.

“We’re shipping absurd quantities into India. We went from shipping 50,000 a week into India to 200,000”.

India will continue to be a focus market for Xiaomi. In less than five month since they launched, sales has passed half a million units.

So Xiaomi is growing extremely quickly and not being able to keep up with demand is a luxury problem to have but the expansion needs to continue if they want to have a shot at challenging Apple and Samsung. So far Xiaomi focuses on emerging markets, it will be interesting to see in the future how they have to adjust their strategy in mature markets. Xiaomi sells mainly on price and in order to be able to do that they spend a fraction on marketing compared to Apple and Samsung. In order to position themselves as a premium brand and go up against Apple and Samsung they will need to invest in building a premium brand.